There has been a strong interest on the part of utility companies, and similar entities, to take advantage of modern technology to reduce costs and increase efficiency in the meter reading applications. Traditionally, meters, such as electric, water, and gas meters, have been manually read by physically locating a person at each meter. However, recent developments have provided for meters which can be remotely accessed from a central location through wire or wireless communication links. Oftentimes, these remotely accessible meters have battery powered meter interface devices which can access the meter status information, and which can communicate this information to a remotely situated meter reading device. In such cases, issues associated with power consumption management are an important concern in a remote meter reading system.
In a typical environment, a meter reading system includes a large number of meter installations. Low maintenance meters are desirable to facilitate operating efficiency and to reduce maintenance costs. Therefore, it is desirable to have a meter interface device which can operate for an extended period of time without requiring frequent maintenance for battery replacement and the like. Such maintenance requirements may be reduced by increasing battery capacity or by reducing power consumption. The more viable option of reducing power consumption is usually pursued. For example, the meter interface device may be disabled when there is no ongoing communication with a meter reading device. A trade off is usually made between the availability of the device for communications and the amount of power consumption savings which can be achieved. A meter interface device employing the power consumption saving technique described may have a poor response time if communications availability is not adequate. The impact of poor meter response time is magnified when there is a large number meters to be read. Thus, there must be an acceptable procedure for ensuring that the meter interface device is available when needed.
There exists a need for a meter interface device which can respond to inquiries for meter status information in a time efficient manner. Yet, the meter interface device must provide for power consumption management in order to increase device availability while reducing power supply related maintenance and associated costs.